Off-grid PV system as a resource in telecommunications, farming and humanitarian aid

Abstract

It has become more obvious how using fossil fuel as a source of energy has contributed to both global warming and general environmental pollution in the past decade. Consequently, it is necessary to operate an electrical grid network that is more sustainably powered by renewable resources including wind, solar PV, hydroelectricity, biofuel, and biomass. Solar photovoltaic energy is a dependable source of power to address the energy issue and the associated environmental degradation especially in off-grid mode such as farming communities, telecommunication base stations and humanitarian aid facilities. The development of technology and the decline in price of solar PV panels has largely informed the choice of solar PV application in off-grid applications. However, due to the intermittent nature of solar PV supply, the power supply and subsequent power output from an off-grid network with high solar-PV penetration are typically unstable. Thus, a lithium-ion battery system is required as the preferred energy storage solution. This study established a control mechanism for an off-grid hybrid system that uses solar PV and lithium-ion battery to give a remote farming community, humanitarian aid facility and telecommunication base station affordable, dependable, adaptable, and sustainable energy. The developed off-grid system is made up of a lithium-ion battery system and a 50 kWp solar PV system as distributed energy resources (ESS). In the MATLAB/Simulink environment, an energy management system (EMS) was developed and implemented utilizing a PI controller (PIC). The off-grid system's stability is increased by using a lithium-ion battery system, which also serves as a backup power source. According to the available power and the battery SOC, a load shedding scheme is a component of the system that supports the supply by automatically disconnecting or reconnecting the secondary loads (farming community, and telecommunication base station). This ensures dependability and continuous power supply to the primary load (humanitarian aid facility) and secondary loads. Connecting the solar PV to the rest of the network used a DC-DC boost converter, which improves the quality of the power generated and permits power flow in the system. The research design performance analysis considered the solar PV system's intermittent power supply and the load demand's adaptability to varied conditions and times of day. To assess the system's performance, the study developed various scenarios using the energy management system algorithm. The results demonstrated that the chosen EMS guaranteed system stability, enhanced reliability, expanded system flexibility, and provided efficient power distribution. Additionally, the developed algorithm maintained the charging and discharging of the battery within acceptable SOC and provided proper power distribution between the solar PV and the lithium-ion battery. Based on the three scenarios that were developed, the results also demonstrated that the battery increased the system's power storage. The developed energy management system additionally offered the chance to redesign and modify the off-grid system parameters. The results showed that the EMS was successful in meeting the load requirement and could be compared to other similar off-grid systems and implemented for farming community, humanitarian aid facility and telecommunication base station.